Cloud-based secure storage provides a convenient way for users to store their valuable digital assets, such as bank statements, salary stubs, shopping receipts, credit reports, medical reports, school transcripts, photos, video clips, etc. A digital asset may be any digital data capable of being stored in cloud storage. Popular cloud storage services also allow users to freely share their stored digital assets with others. For example, a car dealer may upload a receipt to a user's cloud storage account, saving the user the trouble of keeping a physical copy of the receipt. As another example, an accountant may upload a tax return form to the user's cloud storage account for the user's review and signature or a copy of a filed tax return for the user's records. A user may also share her own digital assets with other people or entities. For example, the user may want to post some photos stored in her cloud storage account to a social media website. As another example, the user may need to share her salary stubs stored in the cloud storage account with a landlord in order to complete a rental application.
The digital assets stored in a user's cloud storage account may contain sensitive information that the user does not want to disclose to other people. Thus, prior to sharing or distributing a stored digital assert, the user may wish to alter, e.g., redact, remove, or obscure, sensitive information contained in a digital asset. For example, the user may want to conceal her social security number, personal phone number, etc. As another example, the user may not want to share photos of her children.
Typically, the user manually reviews the digital asset to be shared and alters portions of text or images in the digital asset before sharing it to maintain confidentiality of the sensitive information. However, this process is often time consuming and tedious. Moreover, redacting a digital asset such as a photo may require certain level of computer skills that an ordinary user may lack. These issues either keep users from sharing their cloud-stored digital assets, or force users to compromise the confidentiality of their data. Therefore, it is desirable to provide improved cloud-based content-sharing technology to streamline the process of removing, redacting, or otherwise obscuring sensitive information in a digital assert before the asset is shared, and to provide convenient tools for users to protect their sensitive information.